<p>The meal plans at UR have been significantly changed for 2011-12. </p>
<p>Club meals have disappeared. Meal plans will now include "all you can eat" at Danforth and Douglass, plus declining dollars.</p>
<p>Unlimited Plans & Declining Options
Plan Total Cost each semester
Meliora Unlimited Plan and $500 Declining Balance/semester $2,485/semester
Blue Unlimited Plan and $350 Declining Balance/semester $2,385/semester
Yellow Unlimited Plan and $100 Declining Balance/semester $2,185/semester
Platinum Declining $1,825/semester
Gold Declining $1,524/semester
Silver Declining $884/semester
Bronze Declining $608/semester
Commuter Declining $500/semester</p>
<p>Freshman must take either the Meliora or Blue plan.</p>
<p>Upperclassmen may select from the meal plans available for the dorm they will live in next year.</p>
<p>Both the Meliora and the Blue are the same with regard to the “all you can eat” portion.
(You may eat in the dining hall as often as you chose on any given day.)</p>
<p>The only difference is the amount of declining dollars available. Meliora has $500/semester, while the Blue has $350/semester. </p>
<p>Declining dollars are dollar for dollar spending equivalents that may be used at other dining location on campus–like Starbucks, Pura Vida (coffeeshop in Goergen Hall), Connections (cafe in Rush Rees Library), Meliora Restaurant, The Commons and the new P.O.D. Market in Sue B.</p>
<p>Here’s the link to the campus food service–</p>
<p>Just to be clear…in addition to unlimited dining at Danforth and Douglass, I am given a certain amount of “credit” available to use at other meal options on campus?</p>
<p>IMHO, those “choices” are both limited and expensive, especially considering the food I have experienced at UR. I assume there is a way to add Declining (ironic choice for a name) Dollars during the semester, if necessary. Can someone confirm this?</p>
<p>My Ds university has 4 meal plan Tiers @ different price points. Under each Tier there are 4 choices which vary in the number of meals and dining dollars. At first I thought it was complicated, but now I appreciate that I could tailor a meal plan to her eating habits and our budget. All of these plans cost less than any @ UR, and the food choices are awesome, both in selection and quality. Oh well.</p>
<p>Yes, in addition to unlimited dining at Danforth and Douglass, you will have an additional credit to use at other dining options on campus.</p>
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<p>akdad–</p>
<p>You can add to both the student’s UROS and declining dollars account at any time during the school year. Go to “My Roc” student page, at the top left is a blue tab that says “Guest Deposit”. You’ll need to know the student’s UR student ID #. Click on that and you can use a credit card to add to either account. There is $20 minimum deposit.</p>
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<p>retrolady–neither is my D, but the old club meal plan wasn’t a whole lot better (see below). Since D2 will be in Riverview next year and (hopefully!) cooking for herself, she will be able to take a minimal [Silver declining] meal plan. Of course, the issue now is whether she actually gets around to cooking…(She knows how and has managed to feed herself while living away from home over the past 2 summers so it’s matter of time management and energy.)</p>
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<p>One other change for next year–students with an “all you can eat” meal plan are limited to five (5) “guest meals” per year. </p>
<p>In the past with Club Meals, it was pretty common for students to use their meal plans to feed friends–that option has been severely curtailed. (Freshman year D used her meal plan to buy food for a party she threw for the class she TAed because she had over 35 club meals left the week before finals.)</p>
<p>I believe they switched to unlimited because tracking meals could be ridiculous, with kids trying to use up meals, a few not having some, etc. This is simpler. </p>
<p>Costs are going to be around the same no matter how they carve up the plans, but these may turn out to be cheaper because they seem to have eliminated the meals requirement for upper classmen. (Oddly, I hit the wrong entry on a google page and discovered that RIT’s plans are more expensive.)</p>
<p>The way housing works is connected to food. As a parent looking at the school, south wouldn’t be my choice but lots of sophomores want it because the apartments have kitchens and they can live more on their own. If you go there or another apartment, then you can get a money only plan - declining dollars.</p>
<p>I’m looking forward to this arrangement. So is most of my floor.</p>
<p>My floormates like this because of the way that meal plans are tied to housing. Those who opt for large club meal plans tend to have tons of leftover at the end of the year, leading to people wasting clubs on a single piece of fruit. Since higher clubs correlated with lower declining, they might run out of that (which is “free cash” that can be spent on any food product, rather than the restricted selections of clubs) in mid-March, while still having tons of clubs. Since my special interest housing is very communal, we have a spread of meal plans, so that people with high club counts can use them to provide food for people who might have run out already, and people with tons of extra declining can share them with those who are running out. But for someone without friends to share the wealth with, it’s quite possible to run out of one kind mid-year and have a ton of the other. This is likely to be common to many U of R students.</p>
<p>My own reason’s very personal; I have food allergies and not all in-the-dining-hall food has allergen labels. (Some places do, some don’t.) Boxed foods available at the grocery-store-like-places, however, do have allergen labels since that’s government-required. Club meals generally were incapable of purchasing boxed items, while declining could. So, since with the meal plan changes, my dorm can now have the highest all-declining plan, I am 100% thrilled because YAY I can buy food where I can tell whether or not I’m risking hours of misery. I’m down to less than $100 of declining with 5 weeks left, while my clubs are much higher because there is comparatively significantly less food I can eat on clubs. So as a special-need student, I am thrilled with this change.</p>
<p>They are also redoing Danforth and Hillside this summer, which should improve things. My kid is also happy because she may well be able to get just a points plan with no meals. Lots of housing at UR has kitchens and now you won’t need to get meals on your plan if that’s where you live. </p>
<p>As for why the freshman and quad residents have to get meals: there is a meals system that needs money.</p>
<p>While some people are happy with this plan, almost everyone who is stuck getting the unlimited plan is not happy at all. And when I say stuck, I mean it, because most people are being forced to get some variation of this plan.
The club system is not ideal, and no one can deny that. Freshman are required to get 150 or 200 clubs, which for some people is far too many, and for some people they’re done with in the minimum days possible. However, you get enough declining that you’re fine (or because you’re a freshman other people use their clubs on you). And the best part about this plan is you can eat anywhere. With declining you can go anywhere, actually (including the hospital caf., which is really good actually) , and clubs can be used almost anywhere (pit, douglass danforth).
This new plan, however, is terrible.
No one who is required to get the unlimited plan (which is a large portion of people) will have enough declining. Declining is the only thing you can use at the pit, Mel, Starbucks, Connections, Pura Vida, Corner Store, and whatever becomes of Hillside. If I get the lowest possible plan that I can, and I am going to because they are absurdly priced, I will run out of declining in 1 month because 100$ declining is nothing.
Why are they doing this if they are redoing hillside into a store that one will be able to buy stuff from? Particularly freshman, who run out of declining quickly, when Hillside is in a freshman dorm?
The other dining halls, apart from Danforth and Douglass, will suffer later in the semester because people will run out of declining and won’t be able to go. This is ridiculous because this school is so proud of the fact that they redid the pit last year. And now a large portion of people won’t be able to go there because we actually won’t be able to buy anything.
You can convert declining into a swipe to get into Douglass and Danforth, but you can’t convert a swipe into declining. We are all going to be so sick of Douglass and Danforth by the end of the semester. If you have an all declining plan, you’re golden because you can eat anywhere, but otherwise so many people are limited to 2 dining halls at all times.
I have dietary restrictions, but I can’t appeal because they refuse to accept that it’s a valid reason. When I go to Danforth, there might be one thing I can eat at a meal- this has happened before. The menu’s the same almost every week, so I will the same thing 6-10 things for a year in one dining hall? Not acceptable. Douglass is slightly better, but next year I will actually be limited to eating 20 things all year. This year I can supplement my diet with food from the corner store, the pit, but next year I lose that option.
Yes, you can add declining. But you’re paying an absurd amount to have unlimited swipes already, so supplementing that with declining is just ridiculous. Already if you get the top unlimited plan you’re paying for more than you can ever eat. Having to add declining to that- why not just direct deposit my paycheck to the UR. I’m just basically just giving them money, why not actually?
These are concerns I’ve heard from a lot of people, most of whom are very angry because they feel like they’re getting screwed over. Juniors and Seniors are being forced to get unlimited plans, which they don’t want. All we wanted was all declining. What the hell U of R?!?</p>
<p>My guess, URstudent, is that costs matter a lot on their end and they need more people paying a certain rate. So what they’re really offering for kids in the dorms that require this kind of plan is a discount on declining dollars: $50 to step up one tier and $100 to step up 2 tiers. That is, AFAIK, you pay $200 to get $250 in declining or $300 to get $400. The goal there is both to offer a discount and because parents - like me - will see the $100 savings and pay for it because we want the kid to be able to buy whatever at Starbucks, etc.</p>